A Last Hope
by Bruce Banner
Summary: T.K. and Kari finally get together after several long years, but will a fateful accident tear them apart forever?


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This story takes place several years after the Digidestined leave the Digital World after they defeated Apoclyamon, and also after the Saga of the Second Generation of Digidestined. Kari and T.K. are both sixteen, both sophomores in high school.

Note: This is my first attempt at a lower-rating fic, albeit a Takari, and this is dedicated, in part, to Kari (aka Klarissa), for she was the one who suggested that I aim for the lower rating. Let me know what you think!

T.K. Takaishi leaned back in his hard-backed seat, trying vainly to find a comfortable position in the cramped, twisted hunk of metal and wood that remotely passed for a desk and chair, much used and quite old. Struggle as he might, he could not stop internal mechanisms from slowly putting him to sleep. His eyelids felt as if they were weighted down with ten-pound lead weights, and his mind could not focus, even though he repeatedly forced himself to try. 

Mr. Ichijoji, the short, balding man who stood at the front of the small classroom, brandished a short wooden rod with flourish, as he jabbed at a pulled down map. Behind the map was a chalkboard, a complete muddle of white and yellow slashes, which passed off as a cross between chicken scratch and graffiti that could never hope to be deciphered. There were vague shadows and images of the Bashi-Bazouk reign, or so the illegible scribe had pronounced several times to his wearied class.

Mr. Ichijoji, turned upon his heel, and continued across the front of the room, still droning on and on of the reign which happened so long ago and places remote. T.K. then gave up on the pointless charade of staying awake, and his head tilted forward, until it rested upon the hard and much marred wooden surface of his desk. 

He enjoyed perhaps three minutes of peace, when a sudden noise of wood hitting metal entered his ear like a cannon shot, and his head leapt up, eyes snapping open simultaneously. The thundering blow had not been meant for T.K., thankfully, but rather for one of his fellow students some three rows over, who was in the process of doing some math homework during Mr. Ichijoji's long-winded and rather wearisome lecture which none were taking notes, and a precious few were listening to with half an ear. 

The student got a verbal reprimand, and appeared to cower meekly under the rod of tempered wood which was held above him as an executioner's ax, yet none could find fault with him. The whole class was actually glad for the sudden lull in the monotone lecture, and certainly glad for the chance to give their aching ears a rest. 

To the dismay of the class however, Mr. Ichijoji, after demonstrating his finesse of disciplinary actions with a lethal wooden rod, continued down the isle, taking up in his droning lecture, as if taking up with a page in a book. 

Try as he might, T.K. now found that he could not fall back asleep. Instead of pretending to be interested in the ludicrous lecture, his eyes wandered around the room, glancing first to the clock upon the wall, (and after noting, as is customary in school, that time had virtually entered a no-passing zone), his gaze then shifted from the blackboard, to the closed windows, giving little hint to the glorious, rather ill-spent day outside, and finally then to the one thing in the entire class room that T.K. actually cared about, and would definitely not put him to sleep. 

Kari Kamiya was sitting one row over to his right, and three seats up, but, as randy as it may seem, T.K. did not need to even see Kari face to face to suddenly feel a warm glow inside. His mind suddenly drifted back to frequently viewed memories, and he soon focused all his attention upon them, for the moment drumming out the monotonous sound of his teacher.

Several years ago, when he had been part of the original Digidestined which traveled to File Island, he was just some really young kid thrown into the middle of something he never really understood, even when he was grown up. It was not until much later, near the end of the Original Digidestined, when they were fighting the last and most powerful of the Dark Masters, Piedmon, did he actually begin to understand a small part of all that was going on.

He and Kari were the only remaining Digidestined, Piedmon having turned all of the other Digidestined and their Digimon into key chains. They had ascended up a rope which had mysteriously appeared beside them, just as they were about to give up. 

Piedmon climbed up the rope after them, and it looked to be the end for all of them, even the never-before-defeated Angemon was lying within the rubble upon the floor, several hundred feet below. Piedmon had cut the rope just underneath T.K., and so Kari and T.K. began the fall to what appeared to be their doom. However, as they fell, their hands were interlocked, and T.K. then felt something within him burst aflame. It was not only the Hope which his crest foretold and which allowed the fallen Angemon to digivolve to MagnaAngemon, but was also the realization of the beginning of his feelings for Kari.

As the years past, and T.K. and Kari found themselves apart of the second team of Digidestined, their feelings for each other slowly grew, but were kept well hidden from all others, and especially from each other. It was not until very recently, that their long-hidden feelings got the better of them, as they both found out in an unexpected but much anticipated date.

It had been an arduous task to mask his feelings for Kari all that time, especially since they were Digidestined together, and had seen more of each other than they had of their parents.

A sudden ringing of the school bell sounded shrill throughout the classroom, acting as some divine authority, to cut off Mr. Ichijoji in the middle of his sentence, and all of the students rose as one, gathering their books and moving towards the door as quickly as possible. T.K. got up with the others, his deep thoughts momentarily interrupted. 

As he headed out the door, Mr. Ichijoji yelling after the remainder of the class about the homework for the weekend, he spotted Kari, waiting for him across the hallway, her arms folded across her chest, her books tightly clasped in them. 

She brushed her hair to one side, out of her face, and then she saw T.K. To any observer, she appeared to glow suddenly from within, her face shining as if the halo of an angel. It would be taken then as if she had waited all her life to see a great movie star, and one day the movie star suddenly found her frantic gaze. A smile quickly spread across her face, and she beamed.

T.K. smiled back, not bothering to hide what his eyes revealed only to Kari. His eyes shone forth, his light blue eyes in contrast to her chocolate brown ones, but one sort of contrast which seemed to be just right. 

No words needed to be spoken, as T.K. took Kari's right hand in both of his own, and held it gently. The milling people which choked the hallway, all with destinations burned as if with a brand within their minds slowly warped out of existence, until both Kari and T.K. were ignoring all of their surroundings, and instead looking intently at each other, as if searching for an answer to a question that had long plagued them both, but they already knew the answer to. 

"Hey Kari! Hey T.L!" a loud, rather annoying voice rang through the crowd, breaking through the warped reality which had settled around Kari and T.K. as a sort of comfortable barrier between the two of them and the outside world. 

T.K. dropped Kari's hand reluctantly, more out of reflex than out of anything else, as it is said that old habits die hard. It was not that T.K. did not want anyone else to know what was about, but he had been used to hiding it from everyone.

A rather tall boy with wild brown hair which appeared to be somewhat alive, with a soccer player's build moved out from the middle of the crowd, and came up to them. He held a soccer ball under his right arm, and a pair of shoes hung from his clenched left fist by the laces. 

"Are you guys coming to the game? It should be really awesome! I've got some killer moves which should guarantee an easy win!"

Kari smiled, but said nothing. T.K. on the other hand, could not resist, and said, "So does that mean that the other team will have an easy win?"

"Very funny T.E!" Davis said, fuming. Even though several years had passed since their last trip to the Digital World, Davis could never get T.K.'s name right, whether because of stupidity or on purpose. 

"Davis, we'd like to come, but we have to get some studying done for that big math test on Monday." Kari said, before a fight could break out. This was not really a lie, for they did have a test on Monday, but a week from that upcoming Monday. 

Davis looked as if he had been crushed, but he tried not to let it show. Even he had finally figured out that he and Kari could never go out, not so long as T.K. was alive. "It's okay. I'll see you later then." He said, with an effort, and continued on his way down the hallway.

"Good luck Davis!" Kari called after him, not wanting his feelings to be totally demolished. She knew all to well of his feelings for her, which had been present ever since he had first laid his eyes on her, years ago. But by that time, she and T.K. had been through a lot together . . . and Davis didn't stand much of a chance in that respect. 

T.K. turned back to Kari, who was staring off after Davis thoughtfully. She blinked, as if suddenly coming out of some sort of reverie, and she found T.K. looking at her intently, as if something was the matter with her. 

Before he could speak, however, Kari leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. "C'mon, T.K. The bus won't wait for us." As T.K. followed Kari down the familiar hallways of their high school to the bus shelter, his mind momentarily faltered, as if a sudden doubt suddenly came to him. He wondered why Kari had been looking after Davis as he disappeared from sight, and then at the seemed attempt to cover up an error. Kari was not one to display such affection without cause, especially in public places. Within the walls of a house was another matter, but still T.K. was brooding over such thoughts as he boarded the bus just behind Kari. 

He sank down into the molded plastic seat next to Kari, his bulging backpack at his feet. As the bus began to roll forward, slow and deliberate, his left hand slowly found Kari's right, and he squeezed her hand slightly. She looked up at him, and smiled again, and for a moment, their eyes locked, and they picked up where they had left off, before the unexpected interruption. 

This time, Kari appeared to blush, and then looked away, but she did not try to release her hold on T.K., and squeezed his hand slightly in response. T.K. had not certainly meant anything by such a gesture, but he was not sure that Kari had fully understood him. T.K. would never had even thought of such a gesture, and he hoped that Kari could realize that. They had only been together for perhaps two weeks, and such an issue had never arisen.

T.K.'s thoughts soon shifted, as the bus slowly started up, sending rumblings through the old metal floorboards as if an earthquake was about to start. The bus then moved forward, slowly at first, and picked up speed gradually, until it had turned down a busy street. T.K. stared straight ahead, lost in thought, reviewing in his mind everything that had ever happened between Kari and himself on the Digiworld. Kari looked out the window, and soon too her thoughts drifted back to the Digital World and all the friends that she had to leave behind. Their hands were still firmly clasped at their sides, which was reassuring to them both, yet no words were exchanged. 

The bus ride was perhaps ten minutes in length, and as the familiar street filled Kari's vision as she stared out the window, she felt T.K. rise next to her, , shoulder his backpack, and pull Kari gently to her feet. She smiled, and followed T.K. out the back door of the bus, and onto the infallible firmness of the concrete beneath their feet. 

T.K. traced the familiar paths up the apartment complex to his own apartment, and fished from his pocket his house keys. Unlocking the front door, he pushed it open, to find that, as usual, the apartment stood empty and in rather shabby condition. His backpack slipped subconsciously off his shoulder, and he allowed it to drop to the floor, as he placed his keys upon a small peg near the door. 

Turning to Kari, he asked, "Want something to eat?" 

She smiled in response, and took T.K.'s outstretched hand. He led her through the ramshackle apartment to the small kitchen, dodging over the frequent pile of newspapers and other oddments that T.K.'s older brother Matt had neglected to pick up. 

Taking a seat on one of the few chairs in the kitchen around a battered wooden table, Kari set her backpack on the table, and kicked her shoes off. T.K. rummaged through the refrigerator for several moments, finally being rewarded with a half-package of Oreos and a gallon of unopened milk. Taking down two glasses from a cabinet, he poured two glasses of milk, and passed one glass, with the package of Oreos on to Kari, and took a seat opposite her. 

For a while they ate in silence, until Kari said, "How do you think Davis is doing?" 

T.K. paused and mentally sighed before answering. It unnerved him that Kari should bring Davis up, but perhaps he was over-reacting. Kari had never said outright that she actually liked Davis, but Kari would not be the kind of person to say such a thing. "He's probably tripping himself up with those killer moves of his." He said, and held his breath, waiting for Kari's response.

She laughed and replied, "If I know Davis, he'll try to take on the whole other team by himself." She swallowed the Oreo that was in her hand, and then opened her backpack and drew out an Algebra textbook. 

T.K. felt relieved in that Kari did not try to defend Davis, and now T.K. felt a little embarrassed about his testing Kari. He did not show it, however, but left the room and came back with his own Algebra book, and the two set down for some studying of that most dreaded of subjects.

They quizzed each other after some fifteen minutes of silence, and Kari kept laughing, probably due to the fact that T.K.'s feet were tickling the bottoms of her own. She could not help but laugh, try as she might. She held her breath, a couple of times, and stared stonily ahead at T.K., but then he or Kari herself would burst out laughing.

After a while, Kari got up from her chair, and with her book under her arm, moved into the small, cluttered living room, and sat down on the middle of the dark green couch. T.K. followed her, clearing a spot on the old wooden coffee table, which was covered in junk mail and old magazines. He propped his feet up on the table, and Kari slowly lowered her head upon his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and for a long while, they just sat back, both lost in thought. It would almost have appeared that they were conversing in their minds with each other, but while they could not do that, their thoughts were much the same, both being focused primarily on each other, and all of their misadventures in the past, and focusing on the future between them, both close at hand and in the far distance.

At length, Kari said, "T.K., what do you think of us? About our relationship, I mean." 

It was a rather strange question, as if Kari was doubting the manner or truth of their relationship. But Kari was simply curious for the answer, as T.K. guessed. He took not more than a moment to think before he answered, for he knew if he took any more time, Kari would have thought badly of him. "I think it's great." He said, and looked at her. "Ever since we were younger, I've wanted to be with you, but I couldn't ask because we never seemed to show any true feelings for each other."

Kari smiled and kissed T.K. lightly on his cheek. "Me too." She paused, and voiced a thought that she had been having rather frequently. "Once we've been together a little longer, we could become more serious."

"I'd like that." T.K. said, though he could barely contain his emotions. He wanted to sweep Kari up in his arms and—well, Kari would not appreciate it very much. So he simply did not voice any more of his thoughts, and slipped his hand off her shoulder blade and down around her waist. 

Kari's head turned from where she was resting against T.K.'s shoulder, and T.K. bent his head, and for a long while, they looked into each other's eyes, their foreheads nearly touching. 

T.K. began to feel Kari's body heat slightly from where his body was pressed against hers, and as he stared into the inner most depths of Kari's chocolate brown irises, and could not help but slowly smile. Kari smiled back, and their heads moved closer, agonizing millimeters at a time. 

As their lips were about to touch, T.K. felt Kari's body heat skyrocket, and he was sure Kari felt the same sensation he did. He secretly wished that he could feel Kari's natural heat without the restriction of clothing, and judging from what Kari had said not long ago, he wondered if she wished the same thing. 

Their lips touched briefly, withdrew, and then touched again, and they did not withdraw. Kari's lips felt as the finest of silks or velvets, and he could not help but notice that Kari was becoming a venerable furnace, as her body heat was rocketing into the stratosphere. T.K.'s mind suddenly became a jumble of different information and stimulations, and he could not possibly process it all, so he shoved all information to the sides, and focused on his five senses and their incoming stimulations. 

His hands moved up and down Kari's slender waist, and he felt Kari's arms around his neck tighten their hold slightly. She did not withdraw from his sudden touch, and that was reassuring. 

The kissing, which at first was light and rather quick, soon drew deeper and more drawn out, and time was uncounted between the start of one kiss and the beginning of the other. They were deep and quite passionate, yet they did not stray far out of control, certainly not to such limits which T.K. and Kari had already set for themselves. 

Kari's heart was beating frantically, and all of her senses were screaming with pleasure. She felt T.K.'s hands slowly move underneath her shirt and then hug the upper part of her bare waist. She nearly broke off in the middle of a kiss to giggle at his touch to her bare skin, but she decided not to. His hands moved up and down her bare upper waist, touching the top of her jeans, but there they stayed. Even now, T.K. would not forsake the boundaries that Kari had set up. There would be time enough later for that.

Kari's hands moved underneath T.K.'s shirt collar, and slowly caressed his shoulders. Slowly, with an effort, T.K. withdrew long enough to look again into the depths of Kari's cinnamon-chocolate colored eyes, and he smiled again, his heart at that moment wholly glad, and at the same time, yearning for more. Kari smiled back, her eyes sparking with what could be judged as mischievous intent. 

She leaned forward again, her eyes half-closing, when the doorbell sounded suddenly, echoing strangely through the empty apartment, a dull ringing resonating through it all. She paused, and the doorbell sounded again, this time a little louder and longer. Kari closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. Her eyes filled with lust, she slowly withdrew from where she sat on the couch. T.K. stood up with her, slowly withdrawing his hands from under her shirt. 

They kissed once more, only a flicker of what had passed between them moments before, and, possibly, the smallest hint of what might, or would soon pass between them. Kari then quickly ran to the front door, while T.K. turned the television on, to portray the illusion that they had simply been involved in a television show, and so to quell any fears that the over-protective Ms. Kamiya might have. Slipping on her backpack and tucking her Algebra book under her arm, Kari glanced once more back at T.K., not without a true sense of disappointment and longing, try as she might not to let her frustrated feelings show. 

She then opened the door, and greeted her mother almost too loudly and hurriedly, as if she were out of breath and eager to leave the premises least Ms. Kamiya even guess as to what occurred in that apartment behind lock and key. Fortunately, Ms. Kamiya did not pause to question such strange actions of her daughter. Kari yelled good-bye to T.K., to complete the rather convincing illusion, and both Kari and Ms. Kamiya heard T.K.'s farewell just before the door was almost forcefully closed by Kari. 

T.K. heaved a sigh of true contentment as he flopped down upon the couch, the cushions still rather warm from the body heat which was unusually high that had been in the direct vicinity scant moments before. The remote in hand, he proceeded to rapidly change channels, looking for something to occupy his mind and fulfill the opiatic ways of society. 

His mind, of course, was not on the series of brightly colored images—DragonBall Z, Pokemon and Gundam Wing that flashed across the television set—but rather on the events of the past few minutes. He was trying to preserve every detail, image, and sense he had felt and seen in a mental scrapbook which he could open at a later time and peruse through when he could not be with Kari. 

Then, as he was replaying the events of the passed ten minutes or so in his mind, he heard from the open windows of the kitchen, which faced the street which ran parallel to the front of his apartment building, he heard the sudden loud screeching of brakes and the much shunned sound of metal colliding forcefully, and with much velocity, with more metal. 

A sudden indescribable horror gripped at his heart, as if it had ceased to beat for several moments. By some unseen mental or eldrich summons, his thoughts immediately turned to Kari and her mother, and a terrible thought screamed mental klaxons deafeningly in his mind. 

He leapt from the couch, even as his mind was going over why, exactly, he had the sudden terrible thought that Kari was somehow involved in the crash that had happened scant seconds before. Not bothering to throw on a jacket, and at the last second grabbing his house keys, he tore out the front door, slamming it shut behind him. 

He bolted down the nearest concrete stairwell, the sound of his pounding sneakers echoing loudly off the nearly immovable might of the surrounding walls not much different from shots from a B.B gun. He reached the ground floor, and nearly tore the door leading to the outside world off of it's hinges as he yanked it open. 

Once outside, his eyes scanned rapidly, and he saw, near the corner down the block from his apartment building, traffic had stopped and a large crowd had gathered. As if in a dream, he heard the wailing of many sirens off in the distance.

His feet seemed not to touch the ground as he ran with all speed towards the crowd of people, a distance of some fifty yards. As he neared the edge of the crowd, he saw the first ambulance pull up, breaking through the crowd as if it where a wall of water, yet not touching even a single droplet. As the technicians jumped out of the front of the ambulance and opened the large doors in the rear of the gleaming white vehicle, T.K. then saw what his initial fears had been so quick to ally to his mind, and grief wholly overtook him. 

A black sports car had broadsided Ms. Kamiya's four-door red Honda Civic, on the right hand passenger's side, towards the back. Both the ill-driven sports car and the Honda had large impressions where the two vehicles had collided. The license plate and bumper had fallen from the front of the sports car, and lay upon the pavement as incriminating evidence as to which driver was at fault, though it was hardly necessary.

The driver of the sports car was little more than dazed, trying to exit his car from behind the enormous white airbag which had blown up in his face, but he was not having much luck. Ms. Kamiya was looking rather dazed, and holding her right hand over her forehead where a nasty bump was forming from where she had slammed her head against the steering wheel. 

T.K.'s worst fears and dread were realized, when the ambulance technicians pulled Kari's inert form from the right hand front passenger seat. As they loaded her gently on a gurney, T.K. broke through the crowd, yet could not bring himself to go closer to the gurney where his love was lying still. Some unseen barrier prevented him from doing, and his heart felt extremely heavy. Vaguely, as if hearing through a veil, he heard the technicians talking loudly to each other. They said something about a concussion, possible coma. 

Ms. Kamiya was helped from the car then, and as she was lead to the back of the ambulance, she spotted T.K., standing seemingly alone and powerless, and grabbed his arm. "Come with us to the hospital T.K." he said firmly, despite her injuries. 

T.K. and Ms. Kamiya clamored up into the rather crowded back of the ambulance, and the one technician who rode with them in the back to give Kari a brief examination slammed the double doors shut behind them. An instant later, the ambulance sprang to life and took off straight for the nearest hospital, some ten blocks away. 

The fact that T.K. had not previously ridden in an ambulance was lost to him, all his attention was focused on Kari. Ms. Kamiya was given a plastic blue bag which contained a frigid object that she gingerly pressed against the bump on her forehead, and she looked at Kari, her heart troubled, yet she did not show it. 

The technician took her pulse, saw that she was breathing, and examined her for superficial injuries. He noted a small abrasion upon her forehead, but it could barely be seen. With the skilled precision that comes with having done a technique countless times before, the technician located an vein in Kari's lower arm, and inserted an I.V. tube in a space of ten seconds. A slight mixture of sodium chloride in an aqueous solution began to flow into Kari's motionless arm.

All of T.K.'s concentration was wrought upon Kari's prostate form, and his eyes followed the slight movement of her chest as she breathed softly. He was beyond tears, his emotions a mixture of sorrow and rage, yet he showed more attributes of the former emotions, and none of the latter. His mind was racing, yet going nowhere, and processing little. All his thoughts were on Kari, and already he was wondering the eventual outcome of the whole affair, and what effect it would have on him, though he would rather not think of it. 

They arrived then at the hospital, some two minutes later, and all was filled with commotion. Four technicians were lying in wait for them as soon as the door opened, and three of them leapt into the back of the ambulance and pulled the gurney down, while the fourth was being briefed by the technician whom had rode with them. Ms. Kamiya and T.K. followed, rather bleakly, and where just in time to enter the hospital before the automatic doors closed behind the gurney laden with her daughter and his love. 

They followed the gurney down several long corridors, taking sharp turns with no warning and with no clear direction to their destination. They found themselves at last in a large hospital room, where Kari was transferred to a hospital bed and her I.V. bag exchanged for a new one. 

Ms. Kamiya was then coaxed out of the room so she could be properly examined, and a white curtain drawn around Kari's bed. The door to the room then was shut, and it seemed none had noticed T.K. He pulled a chair from the short hallway that lead to the doorway to Kari's bedside, and he sat down, putting his head into his folded arms upon the stark whiteness of the unfolded sheets. 

He looked up, and for time uncounted he looked at Kari, worried and his thoughts running rampart. He slowly took her inert hand in his, and found that it was slightly cold. With his other hand, he lightly brushed her hair from her closed eyes, and took up her hand in both of his. 

For a while he did not speak, and only looked at Kari, who he had come to love and deeply care about. His heart heavy, he sighed and began to speak to her quiescent form in a quiet tone, not without a hint of sorrow. "Kari . . . I know you can't hear me, and this may be too late . . . but wake up." He paused, and swallowed, his throat as dry as the arid Sahara. "You've got to . . ." he continued, almost to convince himself. "I love you Kari. I've loved you ever since I set eyes on you. I've never told you, but I've deep feelings for you . . . like I've never had for anyone else. And I wish I could tell you so that you could hear it. I want nothing more than to be with you for the rest of my days and beyond, and I will be content, mentally and physically, and my heart fulfilled like none other. You are fairest of the fair in my sight, and my heart would be ripped in two, never to be whole again if you will not wake up." As he said this, he leaned forward, and kissed Kari gently on her forehead. 

As his eyes shut to ward off a wave of tears that threatened to be quite unquenchable, his heart felt extremely heavy, but light all the same. He began to feel a gradual sensation within him, in a deep place previously untouched where knowledge rarely dwelled. The sensation grew stronger, and strangely, it seemed to T.K. that some of his grief was replaced by a welcomed feeling—of hope.

He opened his eyes slowly, and saw that there was an unseen radiance about him, one that held an unseen glimmer of gold. As he became more and more aware of it and it's purpose, he saw that it was slowly spreading across to Kari's stationary form. The invisible radiance seemed to linger upon Kari's face for a brief instant, and then seemed to disappear from all senses as it spread like a wave of sunshine across Kari. 

All of T.K.'s grief and anger was suddenly gone as a one thought was generated within him, the one thought of hope which he had not felt before. His heart was no longer heavy and burdened, but light and free. 

Kari's eyes fluttered slowly opened, and for a moment, she looked up, and spotted T.K. sitting beside her. A small smile came over her, and she rose slowly from the bed. 

T.K.'s smile was much larger than he had ever thought possible, and he thought as if he might leap into the air ten feet, so full of relief was his heart. He squeezed Kari's hand very slightly, and she returned the pressure, and her own beautiful smile broadened. 

"Welcome back." T.K. said softly, and hugged her fully, not caring about the I.V. cord. She hugged him back, and her face was filled with a light radiance, as was her heart, which was quite akin to T.K.'s. 

"I had you to guide me. My own ray of Hope to lead me from the darkness of oblivion." She whispered back. For a long while, neither of them moved, but stayed as they were, both glad to be together again, as if time uncounted had passed since they had last seen each other. 

Kari bent her head and whispered so only T.K. could hear. "I love you too." 

Light and Hope soared to new heights of love and unfettered passion, and so all was right that moment in the world, or so far as the Kingdoms of the power of the Angels were concerned. 


End file.
